


Peter's Story

by K_Hanna_Korossy



Series: Stories [4]
Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Hanna_Korossy/pseuds/K_Hanna_Korossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guys set out to end Chikar once and for all. It doesn't go so well for Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peter's Story

First published in  _Our Favorite Things 23_ (2007)

 

“So, we ready to go hunting?”

I said it with a grin and a tilt of the head because that was me, but I was dead serious and the guys knew it. We’d been working up to this day for a long time now, and even Ray looked determined. And, yeah, okay, kinda excited, hopping from foot to foot, but that was Ray.

Winston was checking everyone’s gear, doing what he did best, which was looking after the rest of us. Going into the Netherworld, we couldn’t exactly just run out to the car for more gear if we needed it. Not one of my favorite hunting grounds—even New Jersey had it beat by a landslide—but you go where the bad guys are. Especially when they’ve been coming after you. Time to fight this battle on our terms.

“Gentlemen, please check your retrieval bracelets.” That was Egon, ignoring me as usual. Probably still annoyed I’d put food coloring on half his fungus collection, getting him all excited about finding some new…did fungi get fungal infections? Anyway, he’d barely talked to me since I’d told him the truth, and I gotta admit, the thought still made me grin.

He was looking at me right now, though, making sure I’d heard him. I snapped back, checked my bracelet, and gave him a thumbs-up. His mouth didn’t smile but his eyes did. I wasn’t so much forgiven as getting a reprieve due to circumstances but, hey, I’d take it. I grinned back at him. Yup, we were all set.

Janine cleared her throat behind us, then gave Ray and Winston quick hugs, Egon a much longer one. I got a swat on the arm. Ah, the petty jealousies and resentments I must face being Peter Venkman. Oh, well, we were risking our lives today, anyway. I grabbed her, swept her back in a dip, and gave her an enthusiastic smack on the cheek.

Um, _smack_ being the operative word. You could probably see her palm print on my cheek after, if Ray’s giggles and Winston’s smirk were anything to go by. Egon just glowered at me. So much for being forgiven.

“If you’re quite finished, Peter…”

“All yours, Spengs,” I said magnanimously. And just like that, we were all business again.

He double-checked the readings he’d probably already quadruple-checked before. But we’d gotten pretty good intel on this one, a ghost with a strong vested interest in staying on our good side. For once, we knew exactly where we were going and we had a plan, thanks to Ray’s research.

Chikar, our very own demonic thorn-in-the-side who had sent his minions after us several times and nearly got some of us killed each time, was going down.

Egon gave a few last minute instructions to Janine, but it was all kinda simple at this point: we went through the dimensional portal into the Netherworld, we blasted Chikar, we pushed the button on our bracelets, and we came home. Janine was backup, but we were as ready as we could get with this one.

So we thought, anyway. I should have known better by now than to think something that stupid.

“Gentlemen…and Peter.”

Oh, yeah, Egon was miffed.

Egon flipped the portal switch, and right away the lovely scenery of the Netherworld came into view through the large ring. Craggy cliffs, barren wasteland, rocks everywhere: I was thinking about building a vacation home there.

“You sure this is the place?” Winston asked the question I’d kinda been thinking but was afraid to say. Egon knows some very sneaky, highly scientific ways of getting back at me when he’s really annoyed.

“These are the coordinates the ghost gave us, but I took the liberty of sending a meter through the portal earlier. It is definitely registering the presence of a class seven in the area.”

Which wouldn’t be so unusual for the Netherworld, but we took what we could get.

I shrugged. “So let’s go kick some demon butt.”

And with that inspirational rallying cry, we went through.

The Netherworld is…different. Gravity’s a little higher—I made the mistake once of asking Egon why, and a half-hour later when my eyes had glazed over, I’d begged off with a migraine none-the-wiser—the air’s thick with smells I really don’twant to think about… It’s hard to explain, but everything’s kinda skewed. You can definitely tell you’re not in Kansas anymore. Not like I know why anyone would want to be…although Dorothy was kinda cute…

“This way,” Egon was saying, pointing forward and to the left. Ray and he were already bent over the meter, checking the readings. Winston took point; I brought up the rear.

More lovely scenery passed by as we went, scaling the slight incline, avoiding the heavy-duty cliffs. There were a lot: the place was like a mix of the Sahara and the Rockies, minus ice and hot snow bunnies. Kinda the worst our world had to offer all mixed in one, but that was part of the Netherworld’s charm. Seriously, vacation house. I had plans.

The eggheads up front were talking, so I kept a close eye on them. Winston in front was scouting like the former soldier he was. No sign of trouble so far, and I was looking forward to it staying that way.

I was paying attention; I know my job. We were in enemy territory, up against a demon who had nearly brought us down several times. You better believe I was paying attention, especially watching my buddies’ backs.

Maybe I just should have been watching mine a little better.

A set of crags was rising up ahead of us, and the brain trust had just agreed that was probably Chikar’s lair. Demons liked big showy places: castles, palaces, mountains, whatever. It made sense and fit with what the ghost had told us. I hefted my thrower a little higher and saw Winston do the same. We slowed down, moving more cautiously as we got closer.

The first warning I got was when my pack started to whine.

I knew that sign. It was one of the first things Egon had ever drilled into us: pack starts to overload, you need to pay attention. He and Ray were already swiveling around, brows drawn into twin frowns I might have made fun of under different circumstances. Now, I was a little busy.

I checked my dials, quickly yanked the pack off and looked it over. Nothing was wrong that I could see. But the whine was steadily growing.

“Dispose of it, Peter,” Egon said urgently. “Quickly.”

Yeah, I’d kinda guessed that by now. I lifted frantic eyes to his for a fraction of a second, just enough to register that he looked about as stunned as I did, and then I was whirling around, looking for…there. A steep drop-off about a hundred feet away. Perfect.

I started to run. The overload effect was growing, nearly painful now.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Chikar had always gotten to us through non-supernatural means before: bringing a building down on us, rigging a meter to blow, messing with the car. We knew his followers could get to machines, but we’d been looking for that, on guard. We were supposed to get the drop on him this time, come in and hit him before he knew we were even there.

We’d been in the Netherworld about ten minutes, and already he’d gotten the drop on us. Clever demon.

I thought of a few other nastier adjectives as I ran, especially when even over the pack’s escalating feedback, I could suddenly hear yelling. I risked a glance back to see several ghosts bearing down on the guys. Nothing they shouldn’t have been able to handle, but if those things got any more of our packs…

The pack’s whine grew critical, a high-pitched squeal I would have covered my ears against if I’d been able. Time was up.

The ledge was still a dozen yards away.

I didn’t have a choice. I threw the whole forty-pound pack as hard as I could, watching the arc of its path with a thudding heart. If it wasn’t far enough…

It disappeared over the lip of the cliff. I kept counting.

I’d just hit five when the shockwave came.

And it was then when I’d realized just how much I’d miscalculated. Because this wasn’t Earth, nor did it follow any of the rules of Earth. What should have worked on terra firma didn’t go so smoothly here. The next thing I knew, the ground under me was cracking.

I had the time to take about two steps back; I’m not really sure. I never would remember this part very clearly. Just the sudden falling, the cries of the guys in the background, and one sharp moment of terror.

I didn’t even know it when I hit the ground.

 

I hated waking up with a hangover. Not that that was a regular thing, mind you. I’m not a heavy drinker despite the partying image. But sometimes I did…celebrate a little too freely, and if I didn’t remember to hydrate, I paid for it.

But as I turned my head away from the meager light streaming in the window, my skull ground against what felt like hard rock. Not exactly my bed back at home. That woke me up in a hurry.

Yup, rock was the right guess. The whole room was made of it, including the thick bars over the one window that looked out onto a grey sky. Matched the décor. I was lying on some kind of rock outcropping, and every inch of my battered body felt it.

Definitely not Kansas, and I would have happily taken that over this.

With a groan, I pushed myself up a little, taking stock. I was freezing; the room was cold, and my jumpsuit, boots, everything but my jeans, t-shirt, and socks were gone. Nothing seemed to be broken, but it felt like I was one big bruise from my face to my feet. My left side hurt worst, my shoulder swollen and achy as I rubbed it. I guessed that was where I’d taken the brunt of…whatever it was I took.

Memories came back reluctantly, after a lot of prodding. The guys yelling. A thrower blast. My pack exploding.

Oh, yeah. Fun times.

It just occurred to me to look for the bracelet, and that was still on me. Crushed and useless. Heaving a sigh, I pushed myself up all the way, exchanging the hard bed for a hard wall, and leaned my head back. From this vantage point, I could see there was no other furniture in the room, just a toilet hole no bigger than my fist. There was one entrance to the room, a—what else?—rock door, another barred window taking up the massive top half. Beyond it was just more rock. A hallway, I guessed, cutting through the lovely palace dungeons. With any luck, they’d stuck the guys in adjoining cells. I cleared my throat, winced at how rough I sounded. “Egon? Ray, Winston? You there, guys?”

No response. Or at least, not the kind I was looking for.

The eyes that appeared in the barred door were too huge and luminescent to be human. Not to mention the transparent blue around them. Kind of a dead giveaway, pun totally intended.

“Okay, okay, I totally take back trying to come in and kill your master. Can I go now?” I smiled insincerely.

It smiled back. Not super reassuring on a ghost. “Amusing human. I will tell Lord Chikar you are awake.” It vanished as fast as it came.

Great, I got to meet the big guy himself. And me with no pack to say hi with.

I looked around in the vain hope I’d missed something the first time, but that’s kind of hard when you’re in an empty room carved out of rock. Okay, so what would Egon do? Besides build a laser out of a watch, a broken retrieval bracelet, and a jeans zipper?

Yeah, I was screwed. Even the great Peter Venkman came up empty sometimes. It’s kind of a secret, but I’m not so great without my friends.

Which led to other, even nicer thoughts. Where were the guys? Had they gone back for reinforcements? Without me, my head wanted to add, but I wouldn’t let it. That would make sense, and any time now they’d be busting in to get me out of there. Assuming Chikar didn’t have them locked up in some other part of his little mountain. Assuming they weren’t… I swallowed. Worse. That was all I let myself think. Not dead, just…worse.

Right. Denial, meet your king.

That was when the walls started to tremble.

Demons sometimes like to pop in and out like ghosts, all the better to wreak havoc, sow destruction, yadda, yadda. Chikar, apparently, liked to make an entrance. A big, ground-shaking one.

Not that I was scared or anything. I raised my head and stuck my chin out and prepared to meet the guy who had nearly killed all my buddies at one time or another and, oh yeah, me. I wasn’t scared at this point. I was mad.

Then big ugly appeared in the door, and I…blinked.

He was pink. Cotton candy, ballerina, five-year-old-girl pink. Walking with a gnarled cane.

Huh. A little hard to take seriously. Despite the teeth. And the horns, and the scales and claws. Still, I was half-expecting a kitten voice to go with the girly look.

Not so much.

“You have failed,” and it sounded like gravel over…uh, gravel. Real gravelly. A couple of pebbles rolled down from my own ceiling.

“No way, bunky—this was part of the plan,” I said nonchalantly, shrugging. “You fell right into the trap.”

There was the sound of a snort, and my eyes were drawn down to the ghost from before, off to his boss’s left side. He went quiet when Chikar gave him a hard glare, but I made note of it. Interesting. Maybe there was some dissension in the ranks here. The intel we’d gotten had been that Chikar had been controlling ghosts somehow, not just in charge of them, and if I could figure out how…

“The others have left,” Chikar continued imperiously, and he had all my attention now. “You are alone.” A slow, sadistic smile. “You will never leave.”

Okay, that was not an icy ball in the pit of my stomach, just…tension.

Right, all I needed was a massage.

I laughed, and knew it sounded all wrong, too high and hollow, but my mind was running Chikar’s words on a loop and I was a little rattled. If the guys had left, they’d be back. I was just alone for a minute. I wasn’t staying here. “Oh, yeah?” was the brilliant retort I came up with.

Chikar laughed, and _his_ sounded sincere. Then he turned, leaving Bright Eyes outside my cell for a moment before he left, too.

Left me alone.

My smile dropped. I pulled my legs up on the “bed” and hugged them to me, trying to get warm because suddenly I was cold inside, too. Chikar didn’t know the guys. They were probably planning a rescue even as I sat there. They would never leave me here. They just needed time to regroup. I’d only been there… I looked at my watch, felt my stomach take an even harder dive. Twenty-six hours. I’d been there over a day already.

The guys would be back. Really. I just had to wait a little while. But any moment now.

If only that pit in my stomach would go away…

 

Hours passed. Then days. Then a week.

On the second day—well, second day I was awake—I had decided not to wait for rescue and started chipping away at the bars of my cage with my belt buckle. I broke more nails and skin than rock, but I kept at it, wore away a few millimeters each day. My clothes and hair got sweaty and gross; I started growing a beard. The cold settled into my lungs and started a cough that got a little worse each day. And I started getting weaker because even though Bright Eyes brought me every day some gross water and dried mushrooms and plants I didn’t look at too closely, that wasn’t even bread and water. Somehow, I don’t think Geneva conventions applied here.

But the worst part was my imagination.

I kept going over possibilities while I worked ‘cause, hey, not much else to do while you’re trying to dig yourself out of a rock cage. The guys had left and were having trouble figuring out how to get me back. That one was my favorite explanation because it meant they were still coming any minute now. Second place was the portal had blown when they got back and Egon was working round-the-clock to fix it. For a week. Okay, I didn’t quite believe that one, either. Third was that the guys were prisoners somewhere else, and between Egon’s brilliance, Ray’s handiness, and Winston’s practicality, they would be breaking out soon. I liked that one, too, even if I wasn’t crazy about the guys also being locked up. Or, maybe one of them had gotten hurt, and that was slowing them up, which, yeah, also not my favorite idea, but hurt wasn’t trapped or _dead_. Because that was one option I was not entertaining. Not willingly, anyway.

And then there was the possibility that Chikar came by every day to cheerfully share with me: that the guys realized they were way outgunned and had left and weren’t coming back. I wasn’t considering that possibility, either.

My dreams—nightmares—had other ideas.

To be fair, I was tired and sick and not feeling a lot of optimism as I cracked another nail on the damned rock bars. My head wasn’t in the best shape, and that’s my professional opinion. I knew the guys wouldn’t give up on me, knew it deep down like bedrock.

But the ground shook every day with Chikar’s arrival, and with it, my certainty. If the guys thought I was dead, if the risk was too great…if I wasn’t worth as much to them as I thought…

Yeah, that was how messed up my head was.

I stopped thinking about it, started thinking about the very nice way Marcy’s body curved in just the right places, and kept digging.

I almost didn’t hear Bright Eyes until he was right there.

“You do not give up.”

I’d dropped away from the window as soon as I realized he was there, hopefully not too late to hide what I’d been doing. It took me a second to realize he didn’t mean my trying to get out. “Uh, no,” I said. “Why, you got a pool going?”

“Your friends are gone—Chikar did not lie in this.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I said flatly, but I couldn’t help noticing he wasn’t looking at me with Chikar’s obvious malice. From the start, he’d seemed more…curious than anything. Like Slimer with an actual brain. And I noticed the careful phrasing. “So, what _does_ Chikar lie about?” I asked casually. I think my coughing distracted him.

A flash of bitterness crossed his expression, and if it surprised me to see a ghost with a bitter expression, I didn’t think about it. “He does not lie—he does not need to.”

“Oh, yeah?” I tried not to look too interested.

“Not all do his will by choice,” Bright Eyes said flatly, and before I had a chance to ask him what he meant, he vanished.

Hmm. Sounded like the rabble was a little roused. I could probably use that. If I had to. If the guys didn’t come.

And that wasn’t as farfetched an idea anymore as it had been.

 

I had pneumonia.

I never went to med school— _psychologist_ , not _psychiatrist_ —but I didn’t need to to self-diagnose. The way my lungs felt, like they were full of water and heavy. The wet cough and exhaustion. I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t been shivering and cold. I was sick, dead if I didn’t get out of there, and the guys, my best friends, weren’t coming for me.

It was over three weeks—twenty-three days—since I’d first hit the Netherworld and it had hit me back. I was most of the way through the bottom of two bars on the window, enough that I could have broken them if I’d been at full strength. But it got a little less important each day I was stuck in that place with no one coming to get me.

_\--Why, Egon?_

_\--It’s just not possible, Peter._

_\--If it were you, or Ray, or Winston, we wouldn’t have given up._

_\--Surely you wouldn’t want us to die, too._

It was imaginary Egon’s gentleness that hurt the most.

_\--I’m so sorry, Peter._

_\--So figure something out, Ray!_

_\--I can’t, I just…I can’t lose any more of you guys._

Did I really want them to risk it? No. And yes.

_\--Not making a lot of sense here, Pete._

_\--You try being rational locked up in another dimension by a sadistic demon for three weeks, Zed._

_\--The Peter I know would understand._

Maybe he would’ve. I wasn’t sure myself who that Peter was anymore.

The only real conversations I was having—and yeah, I saw the irony—were with a ghost. Bright Eyes brought me water and food every day and then stayed and talked. The ghostbuster in me, or maybe the psychologist, didn’t give up trying to figure him out, but I was talking less and less. So he talked more. About Chikar, about what he’d seen in our dimension, about the Netherworld. He told me again the guys had left, and I believed him this time. It still hurt less than thinking they were dead. And he told me the ghosts were enslaved by Chikar, enthralled through some object the big guy had. I didn’t get any more than that, but I filed it away. The one thing it wouldn’t talk about was letting me out of there.

“I can help you,” I offered tiredly. Even if I was going to die, I didn’t want to die here, like this. Even those four words had me hacking up a lung.

“You cannot. And you are sick.”

“Just try me,” I said with a smile I’m guessing probably looked a little punch-drunk. I wasn’t really surprised when he rolled his eyes and went away. I waited until I could draw in one honest-to-God breath, then stood and went back to digging.

I would have bet my life—my soul—once that the guys would never give up on me, that I meant as much to them as they did to me. But it was hard to argue with three weeks of silence, and I was tired.

So tired…

I scraped with fingers that had scabbed over so many times, they were probably scarred for the rest of my short life. Well, at least Dad would show up for one event in my life. Although I wouldn’t put it past him to miss his son’s funeral, too.

Oh, yeah. They wouldn’t have a body. I forgot.

I didn’t cry, not ever, but maybe it was a little hard to see sometimes.

I clawed and scrabbled and tore. And that night, I took off my watch and slammed it against the rock wall until it shattered.

 

“Psst.”

I thought I was dreaming at first. My dreams had drifted from nightmares about the guys to escapism, dreams about Mom and the firehall and Dana. The voice didn’t fit, but my dreams were kind of vague, too.

“Human.”

Okay, that was weird enough to bring me awake, even though I started coughing the minute I moved. I squinted in the dim light; there was no sun, but there was still some kind of cycle on the Netherworld. Egon could have explained it, and the thought still drove a spear through me after all this time.

More light filtered in from the barred window on the door, and Bright Eyes was watching me. He didn’t usually come during the night, though, so I pushed myself up.

“’M awake. What’s up?” I couldn’t say more than two words without gasping for breath, and it felt like my whole body was filled with the liquid from my lungs.

“Your friends have returned.”

And if there was something I wasn’t expecting, it was that.

They’d come back? After something like a month and me almost through the bars and completely through any hope I’d had? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“Can you still help?”

It took effort to understand the words, let alone what he was asking. Help him. Defeat Chikar, set the enslaved ghosts free, join the guys. I should’ve been…happy, at least. But something felt dead inside.

I nodded heavily, wheezing for air and trying to swallow racking coughs. “Yeah. Yeah, I can…help.”

I was still a Ghostbuster. And I didn’t want the guys to get hurt.

For the first time in a month, the door opened.

I wasn’t too steady on my feet. Four weeks of little exercise and meager food and spiraling sickness made Peter a tottering old guy. But I was determined. That came back with every step, until I was just leaning with one hand against the wall instead of with my whole body. I followed Bright Eyes out and down the grey hall.

I couldn’t have found my way back if I wanted, not like I would have wanted to. My head wasn’t clear enough to note where we were going, and my eyes were blurry. I kept bending over to hack a few coughs out or just to try to _breathe,_ and spots swam in front of me. It was all I could do to keep following my little blue guide.

Chikar’s voice had kind of conditioned me to an instant loathing whenever I heard it. That hadn’t changed as we climbed a few steps—well, Bright Eyes floated, I crawled—and His Pinkness’s yell reached even my stuffed-up ears.

He was gloating.

“You do not believe you two with your useless equipment will succeed where you failed before. Two of you have already died trying.”

_Two?_ My heart kinda stopped. I figured I was one, but two? And only two of the guys were out there? Winston? Ray? …Egon?

Bright Eyes had turned to look at me. I stared hard back at him. “Let’s go,” I said, and for the first in a long time, I didn’t feel helpless anymore. I felt furious.

The hallway led up to a cavernous room, with Chikar at our end of the cavern. He was a little busy to notice us, and Bright Eyes and I pressed against the wall in the shadows to keep it that way. It also let me crane around, just a little, to see who else was there.

Winston and Ray looked small and defiant at the other end of the room, Winston wearing a pack, Ray a destabilizer. They were busy shooting at ghosts that pressed in on all sides, just waiting to pounce on them, or their equipment. Their boss watched contentedly and threw gibes at them.

“Your friend died slowly and painfully, cursing your name.”

I cringed.

“You will replace him in the cells soon.”

Uh-uh. No way.

Chikar leaned carefully against his walking stick. “Your weapons are useless against my servants.”

My eyes narrowed. The walking stick. What demon needed a cane?

“You will soon die, too.”

“Not if I can help it,” I growled, and then I was running.

Of course, I started coughing along the way, and that kind of took the edge off the whole element-of-surprise thing. But Chikar wasn’t expecting a rear assault, nor an attack on his accessories. Even as he reared up to probably throw some nasty mojo or sic his ghosts at me, I grabbed the knobby stick and, praying I was right, slammed it hard against the ground.

It cracked in half like split kindling. There was a moment of silence when I wondered if I’d just done the stupidest thing ever.

And then came the light.

It reminded me a little of the pack exploding, actually. Same bright light, same slam of an invisible hand. Except this time the ground didn’t give under my feet. In fact, the wall I slammed into was totally solid, thank you very much. It knocked out what little air there was in me and left me gasping like a beached fish and feeling like I was suffocating.

There was a very loud shriek, like a hundred agonal cries rising up together, and then wind strong enough to nudge my body along and steal what precious little air I could have gathered. My vision started going black around the edges, but in the middle, I saw it. The ghosts, freed from their thrall, lunging on Chikar.

One ghost versus a demon: no contest. A couple dozen very ticked-off ghosts against a demon? My money was on the ghosts, especially when I saw Bright Eyes give me a slow grin and a wave of thanks. If I could’ve, I would have grinned back at him, but I think he got that I was busy.

The black closed completely over my vision, and maybe I heard my name called and maybe not, because the only thing I was sure of when I went down into the darkness was that this time it would be for good.

 

It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong.

I was told later I was in the hospital for four days before I opened my eyes again with any kind of real recognition, and even then it was to stare at Ray with puzzlement, ask him where Egon was, then fall asleep again without hearing the answer.

It was two more days before I started really remembering things. And eventually, I would realize that every time after I’d talked to Ray, Egon was always there when I woke up.

But for the moment, all I knew was that I felt utterly at the _bad_ end of the spectrum of lousiness. My chest felt as if someone had packed it with cement, and drawing a breath was like sucking through a really narrow straw. And that was with the oxygen mask over my mouth.

I think I probably groaned, but next thing I knew, Egon was bending over me. Not dead, apparently, and I took a minute to choke on that instead of the wet sponges my lungs had become.

“Peter?”

Maybe that deep rumble was scary to something or someone that had just rubbed Egon the wrong way. I can imagine it inspiring fear. But to me it had always been comforting, a voice I knew anywhere.

Now, in my ever-so-muddied thinking, it ticked me off. “Where were you?” I muttered, both for lack of strength and the oxygen mask.

“I’m sorry,” Egon said gently. “Winston and Ray tried to get back as quickly as possible—”

“Four weeks.” I started coughing, and turned away when Egon reached for me. No, for God’s sake, I wanted to be mad! “Four weeks,” I repeated on a wheeze. “I thought you guys were _dead_.”

I saw him flinch just before I had to close my eyes and concentrate on breathing and not passing out.

A hand very hesitantly flattened on my chest, like it wasn’t sure it would be allowed. And maybe in other circumstances it wouldn’t have been, but I was sick and miserable and choking to death, and I wasn’t strong enough to reject any kindness.

The support actually seemed to help, and I finally lifted my heavy eyelids again, to see Egon look uncharacteristically sorrowful. “Peter, we didn’t know. Time passed differently—it was only two days here.”

“Shouldn’t have left,” I murmured. “Shouldn’t’ve…we don’t leave…” God, I was tired. Hurt and weary.

“No, we shouldn’t have,” he whispered. “Just a moment, let me get you some water.” And he turned away from the bed and rolled to the nearby table.

Wait a minute.

I cleared my fuzzy vision through sheer willpower, lifting my heavy head to see better. Egon was rolling around…in a wheelchair. His leg was in a cast from foot to halfway up his thigh, stretched out in front of him. I’d thought he’d just been sitting.

Things were starting to come together even in my scattered mind, and I didn’t like the picture they were forming.

Egon pushed himself back with a glass of water and a straw, and lifted the mask away so I could take a few sips. It helped, a lot, even though it wiped out what little strength I had left. “Egon,” I mumbled.

“Shh, you shouldn’t try to talk, Peter.”

“Tell me,” was all I said, and closed my eyes.

I sort of dozed while he talked, enough that I pictured more than heard what he was telling me. Chikar’s ghost slaves attacking while I was disposing of the pack. Egon being knocked over an outcropping and falling bad, breaking his leg. It taking everything Winston and Ray had to get down to him in one piece, then needing to return to the lab because there were just too many ghosts and too much danger of another pack getting overloaded. Egon hadn’t wanted to even take a trip to the hospital, intent on figuring out a way to put some shielding on the packs and go back for me, but Winston had insisted while Ray started working. It took them two days. Two days of working ‘round-the-clock to get me out while I spent four weeks in my prison.

They hadn’t known.

I wish I hadn’t told them, even if the beard was probably a dead giveaway.

Later, I would ask Egon why the time dilation effect now when it hadn’t happened before, and instead of the long lecture I’d been bracing myself for, all I would get was a shrug and a simple line about different parts of the Netherworld behaving differently. I had the impression it was an even touchier subject for him than for me, and I didn’t mention it again.

But right now, I wrapped my head around what I could and let go of the rest. The guys hadn’t given up on me. Had done everything they could to get me out of there, even though Egon was injured.

It still hurt.

“It’s all right, Peter,” Egon said gently. A cool hand curved around my bandaged one. “You’re back now and safe, and that’s all that matters. We understand.”

Which was more than I did. In fact, I was pretty sure those were tears squeezing out from under my eyelids, and if that wasn’t the embarrassing icing on the cake, I wasn’t sure what was.

Egon’s other hand rested on my stomach now, a light, grounding weight. “Everything is fine now. Try to sleep—one of us will be here.”

They always were. I cursed Chikar with my waning thoughts as I went back under.

And for the first time I wondered if after all this, we even got the sucker.

 

“So,” I cleared my throat, “Chikar’s toast, right?”

It was our first official powwow since my return, which pretty much meant it was the first time I was coherent enough to talk and wasn’t trying to hack up a lung or pass out while I did.

Winston was leaning against the foot of my bed, Ray was tucked up against my shoulder like he was afraid I would disappear, and Egon was in the chair on the other side, his hand resting near mine but not on it. I was finally together enough that I didn’t need the contact all the time to know I wasn’t alone, but…it kinda was reassuring to know he was in reaching distance. We have a technical term for that in psychology: freakin’ scared.

“Right.” Ray was the one who answered. “Once you broke the totem of his power, the ghosts he was controlling turned on him.”

“Okay, I sorta remember that part.”

“Then a blue one actually called us over to zap-and-trap the big guy. Said he knew you, Pete?” Winston raised an eyebrow.

I grinned a little. “Yeah, Bright Eyes. He’s the one who let me out.”

“Bright Eyes?” Ray asked, smiling. I wanly returned it. It did sound like the kind of thing he’d do, befriend and name a ghost. I wasn’t about to tell him I was kinda sorry I hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to the little guy, too. I owed him one.

“Fortuitous timing,” Egon rumbled. “Even with the shielding, Ray and Winston were just barely holding their own when you arrived.”

“Yeah—how did you know about the stick, Peter?” Ray asked.

I shrugged, which flat on my back didn’t have quite the same effect. “Wasn’t sure, it just made sense. Bright Eyes said Chikar was using something to control the ghosts, and how many demons have we seen with a walking stick?”

“Otaph,” Ray immediately said.

“Gesundheit,” I answered.

“No, I mean, that’s one. He has a shriveled leg.”

“Tesla,” Egon added.

“The inventor?” Winston asked.

“No, but perhaps Nikola was named after him.”

“Rumash.”

“Gorgala.”

“Maltott. They say he keeps the dead in the head of his cane.”

“Good one, Ray,” I threw in dryly. “Okay, so apparently canes are the in thing with demons. Who knew?”

“It was a good idea,” Ray added charitably.

“Yeah, only without the passing out part after,” Winston noted.

“Sorry about that,” I murmured. It hadn’t taken long to see how much I’d scared them. My beard was gone, my hands were healing, and I could actually take a breath without feeling like a hippo was sitting on my chest, but this wasn’t fading anytime fast for any of us. Egon hadn’t said much, but I had a feeling the waiting-back-home-for-news part was even lousier. “Next time I get tossed in a dungeon, I’ll try to dress warmer.”

Ray winced. Egon turned away. Winston still watched me steadily, but his eyes were sober, kinda sad. Usually by now, we were all laughing the latest ordeal off, but somehow this one had buried its claws in us. I could sure feel it.

Winston pulled himself up. “Well, at least Chikar won’t be coming after us anymore. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna sleep a little easier not being always afraid the toaster’s going to fry me or the coffee’s poisoned.”

“No more spice in your life?” I teased gently, hoping for a better response this time because, man, I was floundering here.

And Winston came through, mouth turning up. “Think I get enough spice from our job and my books, Pete. Although, if you like living on the edge—”

“Peter?” Ray broke in, and he was grinning, too. “With his dates, he already is.”

I turned long-suffering eyes on Egon, but he just quietly smiled.

“All right, so the plan was a success, just…not exactly the way we expected,” I summed up.

“It was not worth the cost,” Egon finally spoke up.

I swear, you could hear crickets chirping. Or maybe the snuffle of the elephant standing in the middle of the room.

I cleared my throat, started coughing, and felt Egon’s fingers creep over my wrist. We’d all pretend he was checking my pulse. “Actually, Egon, I think you’re wrong,” I croaked when I could finally breathe.

Still a lot of silence.

I hurried on. “Look, guys, I’m the first one to admit it sucked being there, and I’d be really happy to have spent that month differently. On a beach in Tahiti surrounded by bikini-clad women comes to mind. But if that’s what it took to make sure we got Chikar and that you guys are safe, I’m not sorry.”

“You matter, too, Peter,” Ray said softly.

I got these random lumps in my throat sometimes; weirdest thing. I’m sure it was from being sick. “I know that, Ray. I’m sorry I ever doubted you—I wasn’t thinking straight. But I am now, and if I had to do this whole thing again, I would.”

Egon’s grip was tight enough to almost hurt. Winston was slowly nodding, and Ray heaved a sigh.

“So…are we good?” I asked tentatively, and held my breath. Or would have if I’d had enough breath to hold.

They kept me in suspense for a second, a long second in which I wondered how I could have doubted and why none of them had blamed me for doing so and what I’d do if I’d messed things up too badly to fix. Because that was one price even getting Chikar wouldn’t have been worth.

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have doubted this time, either.

“We’re getting there,” Egon finally said, and Ray and Winston were nodding like he spoke for them, too.

There was that stupid lump again.

I smiled at my buddies, all of them smiling back, Ray nudging me fondly, and for the first in a long time, I truly felt like I could breathe.

“Is Chikar in the containment unit?” I still couldn’t help asking one last time.

“With extreme prejudice,” Winston answered with satisfaction.

“Did he do the whole ranting and raving and threatening us with a hundred deaths thing?”

“In spades,” Ray said.

“So it’s over.” And that was meant to be more of a statement than a question, no matter how it came out.

“It’s over, Peter,” Egon said warmly. He looked a little stretched thin, but that I could fix with time. And we had that now. Everything that mattered.

I sighed, nestled back into the pillows, and gave my three best friends a contented, pleasantly sleepy look. I loved my life.

And I grinned.

“Then can we go home now?”

 The End


End file.
